and that of the lion-killer, Pertuiset, procured the artist a medal at the Salon, and Antonin Proust, the friend of Manet’s childhood, who had become Minister of Fine Arts, honoured himself in decorating him with the legion of honour.  In 1882 appeared a magnificent canvas, the Bar des Folies-Bergere, in which there is some sparkling still-life painting of most attractive beauty.  It was accompanied by a lady’s portrait, Jeanne.  But on April 30, 1883, Manet died, exhausted by his work and struggles, of locomotor ataxy, after having vainly undergone the amputation of a foot to avoid gangrene.

[Illustration:  MANET

THE BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGERE]

It will be seen that Manet fought through all his life:  few artists’ lives have been nobler.  His has been an example of untiring energy; he employed it as much in working, as in making a stand against prejudices.  Rejected, accepted, rejected again, he delivered with enormous courage and faith his attack upon a jury which represented routine.  As he fought in front of his easel, he still fought before the public, without ever relaxing, without changing, alone, apart even from those whom he loved, who had been shaped by his example.  This great painter, one of those who did most honour to the French soul, had the genius to create by himself an Impressionism of his own which will always remain his own, after having given evidence of gifts of the first order in the tradition handed down by the masters of the real and the good.  He cannot be confused either with Monet, or with Pissarro and Renoir.  His comprehension of light is a special one, his technique is not in accordance with the system of colour-spots; it observes the theory of complementary colours and of the division of tones without departing from a grand style, from a classic stateliness, from a superb sureness.  Manet has not been the inventor of Impressionism which co-existed with his work since 1865, but he has rendered it immense services, by taking upon himself all the outbursts of anger addressed to the innovators, by making a breach in public opinion, through which his friends have passed in behind him.  Probably without him all these artists would have remained unknown, or at least without influence, because they all were bold characters in art, but timid or disdainful in life.  Degas, Monet and Renoir were fine natures with a horror of polemics, who wished to hold aloof from the Salons, and were resigned from the outset to be misunderstood.  They were, so to say, electrified by the magnificent example of Manet’s fighting spirit, and Manet was generous enough to take upon himself the reproaches levelled, not only against his work, but against theirs.  His twenty years of open war, sustained with an abnegation worthy of all esteem, must be considered as one of the most significant phenomena of the history of the artists of all ages.